The System Usability Scale and Non-Native English Speakers

Abstract

The System Usability Scale (SUS) was administered verbally to native English and non-native English speakers for several internally deployed applications. It was found that a significant proportion of non-native English speakers failed to understand the word “cumbersome” in Item 8 of the SUS (that is, “I found the system to be very cumbersome to use.”) This finding has implications for reliability and validity when the questionnaire is distributed electronically in multinational usability efforts.

Practitioner’s Take Away

The System Usability Scale (SUS) as originally conceived may not be suitable for electronic international distribution.

Many non-native English speakers do not understand the word “cumbersome” in SUS Item 8, but do understand “awkward”.

A simple fix for SUS Item 8 is to substitute “cumbersome” with “cumbersome/awkward.”

The Authors

Kraig Finstad is a Senior Human Factors Engineer at Intel® Corporation and is interested in usability metrics and problem solving. Kraig received his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of New Mexico.